Former head coach Pat Dye suggests the Auburn Tigers should realign to the SEC East from its current position in the SEC West, and now current Auburn Coach Gus Malzahn is backing him.
Last week, according to Gridiron Now via his weekly radio show on ESPN 106.7 in Auburn, Dye said, “I’d rather see Auburn in the East than us to play Alabama every year. We don’t need to let Alabama dictate what we do at Auburn. We can play them on rotation just like everybody else.”
Geographically, it makes sense. I get it. Auburn is in the eastern portion of the state and is closer to East members Georgia, Florida, South Carolina etc. To make the move, a team from the West would have to be moved to the East (Looking at you Missouri, who makes no sense being in the East division).
Geographic considerations aside, the context of Dye’s statement make his motivations appear as see-through as an old Walmart t-shirt. This isn’t about geography. This is about moving to the East, which hasn’t won the SEC since 2008 and has perennially been the weaker division over the last decade.
Dye wants the best for Auburn, and that’s understandable. The East is an easier division than the West, and it would give Auburn a clearer path to Atlanta and the SEC Championship game every year. However, it also gives the look of trying to avoid the annual Alabama matchup.
Teams from the West get to designate one team from the East as an every year opponent. The rest of the East teams are on a rotational basis, so they only have to play Alabama every few years. Alabama’s current annual designation from the East is Tennessee.
If Auburn went to the East, Alabama would have to decide between Tennessee and Auburn for an every year non-divisional opponent. Think Dye and Malzahn don’t know this? Let’s say Auburn moves to the East, and wins the division in a year they play Alabama on rotation, while Alabama wins the West. They would play Alabama twice in the same year. That’s a double dose of what they seem to be trying to avoid.
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What happened to trying to get better and compete? Want more proof that Dye would rather flee than fight? Dye has a precedent for trying to alter the Auburn course if things aren’t to his liking. It was his idea to change the Iron Bowl being played at a neutral site in Birmingham (Something that had been done for 50 years).
Dye was concerned Auburn was at a disadvantage because Alabama played one or two “home games” there every year, even though Legion Field sold the tickets 50/50 to both fan bases and seating was divided right down the middle. This caused the location to shift to a home-and-home series in 1989.
Given Dye’s history, it appears he is more concerned with looking for loop holes to avoid competition rather than trying to figure out ways to actually beat the Crimson Tide head-to-head.